Haiti through the senses

While spending a week in Haiti, some friends and I kept a running record of the unique sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and touches of Haiti while we were there.  A short sampling of our list...

Sounds
-singing.  So much boisterous praise on bus rides, in the streets, in church, during meetings!  Rich and deep, memorized, harmonic, adults and children all knew a multitude of songs and sang from their hearts.
-roosters and chickens
-UCI dogs barking
-children at the primary school playing, reciting lessons, laughing
-new puppies whining
-birds singing
- the electric saw going as cabinets were being made for the university kitchen
-hard rain on a tin roof
-the clink of rock as a farmer chipped away to dig through soft limestone
-the church gong at 4:50 a.m.
-bad jokes told by Mike Brost
-the dinner bell
-JeanJean's laugh
-people praying

Smells
-citrus from the orange tree behind the primary school
-bat guano
-pancakes for breakfast
-diesel exhaust
-sawdust as the cabinets were made out front of the dorms through the week
-cooking fires
-BO
-the unique smell of Haiti
-Haitian coffee

Tastes
-rice and beans
-Haitian coffee
-garlic
-Legeme- a vegetable mash eaten with rice
-Coke and Sprite, replenished daily in the dorm fridge
-Herbal citrus tea made by Tana
-fresh mango and pineapple and beets
-fresh bread from the Bohoc bakery

Touch
-cactus
-coffee tree soil
-concrete grit
-coarse little heads of hair
-lots of hands held and bodies hugged
-the air/dust of Port au Prince
-spider crawling on Larry in the night

Sights
-colorful taptap taxis in Port au Prince
-traffic in Port au Prince
-laundry drying on cactus fences that line properties
-taptaps packed with people
-women walking with buckets and baskets on their heads
-people riding bikes, walking, and on motorcycles or donkeys in the streets
-Haitian art
-the marketplace in Bohoc
-people gathering at church to worship God
-children scurrying around during an Easter Egg hunt
-thin and hungry people
-thin and hungry animals
-tin-roofed homes made of concrete, wood, or canvas
-children playing